1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for simplifying the procedure of product development, and more particularly a method for simplifying the procedure of product development used to generating a program code for describing the relationship between a plurality of function names and a plurality of control codes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is a popular technique to use a remote controller to govern home and other electrical equipment. Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic diagram of a typical system 100 having an electrical device 110 and a remote controller 120. The electrical device 110 may be a digital versatile disc player (DVD), which has firmware 116 for operating predetermined functions and storing the driver programs of the electrical device 110. The remote controller 120 corresponding to the electrical device 110 has several functional keys, such as a play button 122 and a stop button 124 shown in FIG. 1. When user press the play button 122, the remote controller 120 transmits a corresponding control code and the firmware 116 looks for the function name corresponding to the control code. When the electrical device 110 receives the control code and the firmware 116 finds out that the corresponding function name of the control code is “play”, the firmware 116 executes the play function.
However, there are many functions provided by the remote controller and no standard for normalizing the relationships between the control codes of each buttons and those functions. First, the factories have to define the relationships between the control codes and functions by themselves when starting to develop remotely controlled devices, then design the program code for describing the relationships between the control codes and functions, and finally write the program code into the firmware of the electrical device. When writing the program code for describing the relationships between the function names of the device and the control codes sent by the remote controller, the programmer has to catch on the functions of the device and avoid defining an unavailable function in the program code. However, inadvertent mistakes usually occur when defining the mapping of each control code to the related function name, such as a single control code maps to numerous function names, or a single function name maps to numerous control codes. The cost of time for debugging increases with the complexity of the program code for describing the relationships between the function names and the control codes.
More particularly, consider a situation where an electrical device A, such as a video control chip, is developed by manufacturer X, and an electrical device B, such as a TV comprising the electrical device A, is developed by manufacturer Y. Manufacturer Y has to catch the relationships between the control codes of the electrical device B and the function names of the electrical device A and understand the firmware of the electrical device A first, then edit and compile the firmware of the electrical device B to generate firmware for operating the electrical device B. The way is quite complex and inefficient when manufacturer X and manufacturer Y tend to modify the connections of the electrical device A and the electrical device B. That is a bottleneck in product development.